


In Between The Rain

by Tesserae



Series: Masks Chafe [1]
Category: SG-1 - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-05
Updated: 2008-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:21:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesserae/pseuds/Tesserae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Col. Emerson's death in <i>Company of Thieves</i>, Cameron finds he has a few things he needs to say to the family. Daniel gets caught in the crossfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Between The Rain

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Beta services, bitch-slapping and the inspiration for the ending from [](http://filenotch.livejournal.com/profile)[**filenotch**](http://filenotch.livejournal.com/), who has a remarkable ear for character and flow. Set immediately post-10.09, _Company of Thieves_, with major spoilers for that episode, and a little backstory for Col. Emerson.
> 
> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/lgbtfest/profile)[**lgbtfest**](http://community.livejournal.com/lgbtfest/), Prompt 734: Cameron Mitchell comes out to any member of SG-1.

The ceremony at Arlington was beautiful, Sam tells him by satellite link after she gets settled in at Area 51. "You know," she says, and he does, remembering more than one morning spent listening to horses stamp their hooves as the far-off sound of rifles broke through the quiet words of a funeral service. He hadn't gone this time, much as he'd wanted to. Colonel Paul Emerson might have been Cam's friend but he'd taken three bullets meant for Samantha Carter, and as she saw it, this was her duty.

"And it's spring out there," she adds, her voice wistful. "You should have seen the daffodils."

"Did they have the band?" Cam asks.

Sam shakes her head. "Just a bugler playing Taps. Colonel Emerson's sister said he hated tubas. Cam…" She pauses, and he leans closer to the computer screen. Her eyes look red, even over the satellite connection. "She was looking for you, I think."

"Yeah. I talked to her yesterday, told her I'd be at the house this afternoon." The thought of it makes him tired - he hasn't seen MJ since they brought Emerson's body back, and he'd rather show up with a couple of six-packs and Chinese takeout and let her tell stories. But he'd gotten the eyebrows from Landry, which meant he was going. "Sam, look, I gotta go round up Jackson and get going. MJ – Mary Jo said she wants us there by two."

She gives him the tentative smile that means that she has no idea what to say next. Jackson flashed him one of those yesterday as well, so it's probably good that he's the one in charge of saying the right thing to the relatives. "Don't worry about it," he tells her. "I'll make sure she knows the macaroons are from you."

"Cam," she says, ruining her attempt to look threatening with a grin. He cuts the connection and heaves a sigh, relieved, even though he's got to face Emerson's family with no good explanation for letting the Alliance lure them into the trap that got him killed. It was a bad mission, and Teal'c and Sam had the worst of it. He just showed up at the end in a wig and a funny pair of shoes and waved a few noisemakers around.

He doesn't blame Sam for wanting to go play with the big toys, not one bit. He hopes the Lucian Alliance _hates_ whatever she's cooking up, wondering if he should have worked harder at talking Landry into letting him and Jackson go mop up. Blowing the rest of them to kingdom come might - _might_ \- erase the memory he's still got of waking up the morning after and blinking stupidly into the bathroom mirror at Kefflin's face. He was reaching for his razor to shave off that scruffy red beard before he figured out what was going on, and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet to throw up instead.

He makes a disgusted noise and grabs his jacket off the chair in the corner. He doesn't think he'll need it, but MJ had asked him specifically _not_ to wear his dress blues, and so he's got on black trousers in some fine soft wool and a dark gray sweater, and bringing the jacket in case the day turns back into winter by the afternoon. Which it tends to, in Colorado, and while a late spring storm might fit MJ's mood, he thinks he'd prefer the sunshine for his own funeral. That way his family could gather under the big oak tree at his grandmother's house and tell stories about the time Uncle Cam saved the –

He's jolted out of his reverie by a sharp knock on the door. It's Jackson, looking serious and tired and unfamiliar in loose trousers and a tweedy-looking jacket.

"You ready?" Jackson says, and Cam grabs his car keys off his desk.

"I'll drive," he says, and Jackson nods his agreement. Which – yeah, if they can't go kill bad guys, taking the Mustang out is definitely the next best thing.

*

MJ's house is well outside the city, an old Victorian farmhouse that's still sitting on ten or so acres of prairie. Cam parks up the street, and as they start up the driveway, he can hear yelling and barking coming from the back yard. Nieces and nephews, he thinks; MJ's husband grew up in this house, but MJ and Kent don't have any kids yet.

He guides Jackson up the steps onto the porch, and pushes open the front door. Inside the house it's quiet, and smells of lilies. Cam spots a few faces he knows, and there are civilians, too, MJ's friends, he guesses, when they start organizing platters of food on the big dining room table. One of the women, a short blond in an expensive-looking suit, walks up to him and puts a manicured hand on his arm.

"Cameron! It's good to see you, even though –" she waves a hand around at the house, taking in the hushed voices and dark clothes on the guests, the faint sounds of something mournful being picked out on a piano. He shrugs out from under her hand and tries to look obvious as he scans the room.

"Where's MJ?" he says, and she puts a concerned look on her face.

She looks toward the dining room. "Kitchen, I think. Oh, Cameron, it's so sad…" Her voice trails off.

He nods politely. "Is there a guest book we should sign?"

She purses her lips, glancing first at him and then at Jackson. He's reminded of Vala and the assessing look she'd given them the first time he'd met her. This woman seems to come to a slightly different conclusion, because she gives him a tiny smile and leads him into the living room, where a photo table is set up in an alcove. The guestbook and a vase of drooping white tulips are off to the side. She's in several of the pictures, obviously family. He turns to thank her but she's gone, heading back across the entry hall to the dining room.

"Will you tell MJ I'm here?" he calls after her, and leans in to look at the pictures. "Look," he says to Jackson, pointing toward a picture of himself and Paul propped up on crutches and sporting identical knee braces, grinning at the camera.

"Halloween party?" Jackson hazards, and Cam laughs, reaching out to tap the photograph.

"Nope, bad day at Airborne. Wind shear. You should have seen the Captain – once he got out of the infirmary, I think he busted the entire weather team down to KP."

There are other pictures of the two of them, and faded shots of the family and of Paul alone, sitting on a pony at six and on his bike at ten, and then at sixteen, standing in front of a green Mustang fastback that looks a lot like Cam's.

"He loved that car," Cam says.

Jackson peers at it obediently and then gives him a quizzical look. "I didn't realize you knew him this well."

"The car was before my time, but, yeah." He trails his finger down over half a dozen pictures of the three of them, arms around each other in restaurants and against a variety of mountainous backdrops, MJ and Paul looking like twins with their dark hair and solidly-muscled frames. "We all kinda hit it off, and MJ took pity on me, I think. Kept saying I looked like I needed feeding."

Jackson's eyes drift down Cam's body, and he turns back to scan the photos. "He wasn't married?"

The front door slams open and a group of boys tumbles through it, followed by a large black dog and a very small girl with mud on her dress. Startled, Cam thinks about chasing after them – the kids know him, and MJ'll want them outside – but they veer left and disappear down the hall, picking up several other adults as they go. Cam shakes his head and turns back to Jackson. "No," he says, and shoves his hands into his pockets.

"Never met the right --- oh." Jackson's voice has that quiet tone it gets when he figures something out, and Cam glances at the picture Jackson's staring at. It's the family again, Paul and his sister at the center of a group of people who mostly look like them. Cam's not in this one, but someone else is: a dark-haired man standing at the edge of the group, arms crossed hiigh on his chest and his features blurred as if he were trying to step away from the camera. Paul, too, is slightly out of focus in the picture, caught in the instant he turned toward the dark-haired man.

Cam scans the board. There aren't any other pictures of him on the board. Except for Paul's body language, the focused attention Cam can read in the angle of his head and the reach of his hands, the man might be a waiter, or someone's last-minute date.

_Oh_, indeed.

"I didn't know," Jackson says.

"You weren't supposed to."

Jackson's head tilts to the side, and Cam can see him sifting through the possibilities wrapped in those four words. Cam can see, too, the moment he figures it out, and he waves a hand toward the kitchen in a gesture he desperately hopes looks casual. "I'm just gonna –" he croaks out, and flees.

*

MJ is in the kitchen, leaning over the sink in a patch of weak sunlight, tears running unchecked down her face. Cam slides an arm around her shoulder and pulls one of the handkerchiefs he'd grabbed earlier out of his pocket. He holds the linen up to her face. "Blow," he orders, and she does, heaving out a watery sigh.

"Hey, Cam." Her voice is a rough whisper.

"I'm so sorry, honey," he starts, and she shakes her head.

"Don't," she says, swiping at her bangs with the back of her hand. "Just -- you think there's gonna be an _end_ to the crying, you know?" She peers into the soapy water and fishes out a delicate gold-rimmed cup. The matching saucers are dried and stacked next to the coffee maker burbling in the corner. It's her mother's china, he knows, the good stuff she never uses because it has to be washed by hand. He looks around. The kitchen is spotless, the old enameled stove gleaming, the fireplace cleaned out and filled with flowers.

He's not surprised. His momma cleaned the house from top to bottom when his daddy got hurt, and then set about teaching him and Ash how to really wash a floor.

"It's like that lame-ass country shit you used to listen to, what was it, sad songs about men in the rain? Everybody wants to tell me he was a hero, as if that makes it -- damn it, Cameron." She wipes her sleeve across her eyes, then reaches into the sink to drain it and turns on the water. "Hand me that dish towel, would you?"

He puts out a hand for the cup instead. She hands it to him, her fingers cool from the rinse water.

"You expecting a lot of people this afternoon?" There are bowls and platters covering every flat surface in the kitchen.

"Oh, Christ," she says. "People been dropping food off all week. Daddy and I are gonna take most of it downtown to the shelter. How much tuna noodle casserole can one family _eat_?" She rinses another cup under the faucet and hands it to him.

He shudders. "Don't remind me. Took Momma six months to get all the Tupperware returned to folks, that time." He dries it and sets it down carefully. It'd be easy enough to stand here with her in the sunlit kitchen and talk about the small things, the way he's done before and will do again for the families of the people serving under him. But him and _easy_ have never made friends. "I'm sorry I didn't make it to Washington. Sam Carter said it was very nice."

The cup drops out of her fingers and he grabs for it before it shatters against the worn surface of the sink. She reaches around and unties the apron she's got on, wads it up and slams it onto the counter, and turns her face to the wall. "It was my brother's funeral," she whispers.

"I know," he says.

She turns around, eyes blazing. "Do you? What do you know about burying your brother, Cameron?"

"I –" he reaches out a hand and she flinches away, giving him the closest thing to a dirty look he's ever seen from her.

He lays the dishcloth over the edge of the sink and turns to face her, trying to talk himself out of what he's about to do. Two dozen pictures on the board in the living room, and the telling of any of those stories will let MJ laugh the way she wants to, as if her brother were just in the other room.

He could talk about anything else and it would be okay. Hell, he could talk about _nothing_, just make soothing noises and then show up later in the week with a six-pack, and it would be fine. Better, _for sure_, than what he's about to do. He takes a deep breath, and tries hard to make it sound like he's not asking about himself.

"MJ. Where's David?"

She pushes herself upright and twists to face him, raising her arm as if she's going to smack him. "Who the hell are you to tell me who I can invite to my own goddamned brother's goddamned funeral!"

"MJ!" He grabs her wrist, feeling the fine bones moving under his fingers as she struggles briefly, anger blazing in her face. MJ's nearly as strong as Sam Carter, and Emerson taught her to hit as if she meant it. And he'd let her if he had to, but today will _not_ get any easier if she breaks his nose or throws him out of the house.

Plan B it is, then. He stretches his face into what he hopes is a boyish grin. She gives him a suspicious look in return.

"You can knock me around all you want, honey, but let me get out of my good sweater first." He glances down at it apologetically. "Christmas present," he adds. "Got the matching socks, too." He watches her until something that looks like guilt chases the anger away, and then drops her wrist.

She stalks over to the sideboard near the fireplace where they've put the overflow from the dessert cart and pulls the plastic wrap off a couple of pies. Her shoulders are stiff under the black turtleneck she's wearing.

Finally she walks over to the refrigerator and yanks it open. There's more food in plastic containers stacked on the shelves. "I bet the freezer looks exactly the same," he offers, and makes a note to bring _something_ when he stops by David's later in the week.

Her snort is muffled by the sheer quantity of food in the thing, but he can see the long taut line of her back relaxing. "You want some coffee?" she asks, not turning around.

"Sure." At least she can't hit him if her hands are full.

She reaches in and pulls out a small glass pitcher, and sets it on the table. He snags a spoon and two forks from the drainer and heads toward the sideboard to peer at the pies. "Banana crème or apple?" he asks her, and she gives him a look that says _idiot_ in no uncertain terms. He puts his hands up – okay, yeah, _pie_ \- and shoves the flatware into his back pocket so he can pick them both up.

They're good, and so is the coffee, heavily fragrant and dark enough for the cream she's put out. Finally she looks up at him, and he pushes his plate away and folds his hands on the table in front of him.

She flushes. "You're not gonna let it go, are you?"

Cam shakes his head. "Nope."

The dog starts barking in a nearby room, and MJ pushes her chair back. "Coco –"

"Somebody'll let her out." There's a muffled voice and the sound of a door closing, and the barking trails away. "_ MJ._"

She tips cream onto the last bit of apple pie on her plate and picks at it, frowning fiercely, then starting wiping the rest of it up with one finger. Cam's halfway through the F-302 pre-flight checklist before she's done. "Paul wasn't out, Cam," she says, eyes still fixed on her plate. "He wouldn't have wanted David to be uncomfortable, and he would be, if …" Her voice trails off, and she reaches for a napkin.

_Oh, MJ,_ he thinks. _God damn it._ "You didn't invite him, did you?" His voice sounds harsh to his own ears, and he doesn't try to soften it. "Every damn Christmas for the last ten years, your birthday, his birthday, _David's_ birthday, for fuck's sake…"

She slams her hand down on the table hard enough to rattle the fork on her plate. He pushes his chair back and jumps to his feet. Behind him, the kitchen door swings open and crashes into the wall.

"You're a guest in this house, Colonel Mitchell. Leave the girl alone."

The voice is an old man's rasp, but MJ's father still carries himself like the two-star general he'd been. Cam pulls himself upright and puts his hands behind his back, knotting his fingers together until they ache. "Sir. I was just –"

"Leaving?" the General finishes for him. "Good." He turns to his daughter. "Mary Jo, you got any coffee back here?"

She looks up at him, and then at Cam, and gets up to pour her father a cup of coffee. Cam knows he needs say something that includes the word _sorry_, find Jackson, and walk out of the house. He's not quite ready to do that. "MJ…"

The General turns around and fixes Cam with a glare. "I wrote the guest list, Colonel. Not Mary Jo. So whatever you think you are doing with this charade, you can stop it right now."

"It's not a charade, _sir_," he says. "Your son was my friend, and David was –" Paul Emerson might not have been out to the Air Force, but a few people knew, and he'd certainly been open about it at home.

General Emerson raises the glare to a glower. "Even the rumors about David were enough to keep my son stuck in some secret program instead of being assigned to CentCom where he belonged! You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to do anything to tarnish his reputation when he's not here to defend himself." The General drags a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes it across his mouth. MJ sets a heavy green mug in front of him and drops into her chair.

Cam can feel a muscle jumping in his jaw. "No disrespect, sir, but – David's a good man." _Who are you defending here, Mitchell?_

"He forced my son to lie about him every single time he walked into that godforsaken mountain, and it destroyed his career. And now he's dead, and you want me to – what, Colonel? What is it exactly you want this family to do?"

Into the brittle silence the mantle clock chimes the quarter hour, and the single note is echoed by the faint sound of the piano, somebody in the library picking out a song that makes MJ start to cry again. The General gropes for a napkin and hands it to her, then tucks a bit of hair behind her ear with one hand. When he lifts his eyes to Cam's and jerks his head toward the door, Cam give the door a shove and walks out into the over-bright dining room.

A dozen people are standing around the table filling plates and trying unsuccessfully to keep their voices to a respectful hush. Somebody he doesn't know turns to him with a tentative smile and he backs away, desperate, suddenly, to get out of the house and into his car and back out on the road. He wants the 'gate, wants a battle that doesn't involve _tricking_ anybody, just a lot of C-4 and extra ammo and maybe the rail guns. The rail guns are seriously cool.

He's halfway through the living room before a snippet of conversation catches him up short. "Dr. Jackson," someone is saying. "I'm surprised he's still around. Didn't he try to leave after O'Neill..." and the voice trails off, but it's enough to bring a prickling of adrenaline to the back of Cam's neck.

_Jackson._ Where the hell is the man? He hadn't been able to read Jackson's expression when he tipped the cat out of the bag earlier. That's nothing new, he rarely knows what Jackson's thinking, but if Jackson's already left... Could he have gotten the band back together only to lose it, along with one of his oldest friendships, over – over what, really? His need to make sure that if he did manage to meet someone and fall in love that they'd be invited to his funeral? When did taking _this_ mask off start to feel like taking off Kefflin's face, when it was that or let Teal'c kill him?

Cam backtracks into the dining room, skirting around the crowd at the table, and sticks his head into the library. There's no sign of Jackson, which is probably a good thing, since the piano player seems to be finishing up _Candle in the Wind_ and the thought of Jackson singing about either Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana is enough to give him nightmares for a week. He's edging toward the front door, wondering if there isn't _something_ that needs blowing up, anything, really, when a hand closes firmly around his arm and he finds himself pulled up against Daniel Jackson's surprisingly solid chest.

He swallows an hysterical giggle. He has never been quite so glad to see anyone not actually wearing a gun.

"Mitchell," Jackson says, and there's more than one question in his voice, but Cam shakes his head, and Jackson simply tightens his grip and starts to move. Cam pastes a smile on his face and concentrates on moving his feet.

Jackson pilots them through the house, laying down a cloud of platitudes and apologies so dense that Cam's not sure anybody realizes he doesn't actually say anything. Not for the first time, he wonders where Jackson gets all these words, if he's got an Asgard generator stashed away somewhere. But even shields come down occasionally, he reminds himself, and as they step out onto the front porch and Elton John gives way to birdsong, he pulls Jackson to a stop.

Jackson flashes him a quick look, the question back in the angle of his head. "You okay?"

He rolls his shoulders, hearing his spine crackle. "Really, really not."

Jackson winces sympathetically and shifts his hand from Cam's arm to the back of his neck, kneading the tight muscles. "You want me to drive?"

Cam leans back into the weight of Jackson's hand. Jackson stops and pulls his hand away, and Cam shivers, suddenly cold. "You hate driving."

"I hate being driven by pilots more," Jackson tells him. "Especially pissed-off ones." He puts his hand out. "Cough 'em up."

Cam fishes out his keys and drops them into Jackson's hand. Jackson closes his fingers around them and says quietly, "Jack always hated these things, too. Reminded him he'd lost someone."

The car's parked a hundred yards up, sitting in the shade of some ancient tree just starting to leaf out fr spring. Cam parks his ass on the hood and leans back on his elbows, gazing up at the cloudless sky, deep blue through the translucent green canopy.

Jackson hops up on the car and gives him a quizzical look. Cam's expecting questions about MJ, about why they just left the house at sub-light speed, about almost anything except what Jackson finally asks him.

"You miss flying?"

"What?" Miss _flying_? What were the 302s, motorcycles? He frowns at Jackson, who shakes his head dismissively.

"Not the 302s, Mitchell. _Flying_. You know, _ up there_." He lifts a hand toward the sky and then drops it, flushing under his tan. "Jack always – Jack said he dreamed about it sometimes, going back to flying."

Cam turns his head and gives Jackson a long look, but Jackson's eyes are fixed on a clump of spiky purple flowers across the road. The tips of his ears are red, and Cam's starting to figure out where this might be going. He clears his throat. "He wanted to leave SG-1?"

"Oh, no, I don't think he'd have left the team, but – you know, a couple of times–"

Cam's seen the mission reports, and there were definitely "a couple of times" when Hammond had been the only thing standing between O'Neill and the NID's efforts to bring him down. They'd thrown a lot at him, told him he was unfit to serve, and Cam wouldn't have blamed him a bit if he'd thrown up his hands and quit. Except that O'Neill _never_ quit, and he wouldn't have left his team behind anyways.

Until, of course, he did. He shoots another look at Jackson, who's examining Cam's car keys as if they were an Ancient artifact. When O'Neill left, they all got to leave, too. Is that what Jackson's about to tell him?

Cam sits up and starts to push himself off the car. "Jackson. If you don't feel like you can stay with SG-1 if I – since you know I'm -- " _Gay._ He can't finish that thought and leans down, hands on his knees, and tries to remember why he thought getting out of bed this morning was going to be a good idea. Breathe, he tells himself, in _and_ out, and when he gets his lungs working again he realizes Jackson is saying his name. And for some unknown reason, he sounds _pissed_. "What?"

"Are you asking me to leave the team?" Jackson says tightly.

What? Never mind staying in bed, he's taking a vow of silence, too, starting _now_. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Jackson crosses his arms and they stare at each other for a long moment. Cam finally shakes his head. "Hey," he says. "It's been a long fucking day and I'm – " His voice grinds to a stop and he grimaces. Vow of silence. How hard could it be? He pulls in a breath, lets it out slowly. "Look, Jackson. I've got something I need to tell you."

Jackson is watching him intently, the slowly-wrinkling fabric of his trousers under his hands the only sign that's he's not simply perched on Cam's Mustang enjoying the late afternoon sun. He's close enough that Cam can feel the press of his muscular thigh and see the rise and fall of his chest under the soft fabric of his shirt. Cam's skin is tingling in all the places Jackson's hands had been – the back of his neck and his shoulders, his lower back where Jackson had rested his hand as they crossed the road. He swallows hard, and Jackson's eyes drop to his throat, and he can feel his body responding to the heat in those blue eyes.

"Yeah," Jackson says. "About that." He reaches out and cups his hand around Cam's jaw, and when Cam turns his head into the touch, Jackson shifts his hand and sweeps his thumb over Cam's lower lip. Cam opens his mouth, and Jackson leans in to brush his lips over Cam's.

_Oh_, he thinks. How long has he been so focused on not getting caught looking himself that he missed this?

"You... really didn't notice, did you?" Jackson says, lips quirking in amusement, and Cam rolls his eyes and drops his mouth back onto Jackson's. This time the kiss is longer and deeper and Cam only pulls away when it starts to get messier, both of them breathing hard and Jackson's hands painting fire down the muscles in his back.

"Jackson - _Daniel_," he says firmly. There's _out_ and there's... getting court-martialed for being stupid in public. "How does this work?" he asks.

Jackson raises an eyebrow. There's a smile playing around the corner of his mouth, and Cam groans. He is never going to hear the end of this one.

"Well," Jackson says, sounding earnest. "I thought I'd start by taking you home and getting you out of those clothes…"

 

End

 

**Additional notes: This story owes a lot to two articles at [Pam's House Blend](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/), [here](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4898) and [here](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4125), which deal with particularly ugly consequences of the U.S. military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

**Author's Note:**

> This story owes a lot to two articles at [Pam's House Blend](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/), [here](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4898) and [here](http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4125), which deal with particularly ugly consequences of the U.S. military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.


End file.
